you have a very nice sense of humor and attitude, this will last you through the bad times well, it seems. the trades are really useful, if for nothing else than you can keep a conversation with an acquisitions person or if/when you think about getting a sales agent. it's possible your work could secure local or foreign tv sales, video, or cable... it's possible. take care and good luck.

christian calson
nebunule films

I found this interesting declaration online at www.neocinema.com. It's a new spin on the Dogme 95 manifesto's "Vow of Chastity." However, this applies to movies for the web. Rather than commenting, I'll let it speak for itself.

Dogma 2001: The New Rules for Internet Cinema

Putting a film designed for festivals on the Internet is no more Internet cinema than putting housework on a stage makes it theater. This is a different venue, with different requirements: The Internet has severe bandwidth limitations, there's a lot fighting for the viewer's attention, and there is a significant community aspect unique to the medium which should be taken into account.

This is not a theater.
Here, the viewer is in control.

Accordingly, true Internet cinema follows these ten rules:



1. Total running time should not exceed five minutes.
This is the Internet, not television. This is usually a desk, not the living room. Time and attention are compromised in this venue. Know it, live it.


2. Something interesting must occur within ten seconds.
In a theater, the environment forces the viewer to focus their attention on the screen, allowing the movie to take its time establishing itself. On the Internet, viewers are often at their desk with a cat on their lap or the phone ringing or kids needing attention or cooking something or whatever. And even just inside the computer there are many distractions: incoming email, IMs, other interesting apps to play with. To compete successfully for the viewer's attention in this environment you gotta act quickly and decisevely. That "something interesting" need not include an explosion (someone please call Hollywood and let them know), but it must capture the user's attention. Research indicates that computer users will click away if they don't get some useful activity within ten seconds.


3. It can only require the four most common plug-ins.
That means Flash, Real Player, Windows Media Player, or QuickTime. Anything else has a market penetration too small to be worthwhile for the general public. Requiring people to download one more plug-in is so very rude and only hurts yourself: a more polite world is only a click away. And of course we're talking about one version behind whatever the current one is; requiring folks to get a more recent version of a plug-in than what they're likely to have is just as rude. It takes about 18 months for a new version of a plug-in to become dominant.


4. It must be sized between 320x240 and 640x480.
Anything smaller than 320x240 is too small to be interesting. Anything larger than 640x480 is too large to be downloaded by most people.


5. Compose for your delivery size.
This is a small screen, so don't compose long shots in which essential detail may be lost.


6. Movies should be downloadable.
If you think streaming is somehow more secure you're kidding yourself. The image quality of streaming media is far, far behind downloadable movies. Don't make people suffer pixelated images and out-of-synch sound. Understand that any electronic media can be shared, then get comfortable with that. Put a copyright notice on it and let it go.


7. It should be double-sized.
Setting the movie to double-size gives twice as much viewing area without increasing file size/download time. If you use good compressors like Sorensen in a downloadable movie, even at double-size the quality will still be much better than streaming.


8. There must be a URL which can direct others directly to the movie page.
The Internet is about sharing. If you take the time to make media available, take just a little more time to think through how easily folks can access it. Frames do not normally allow direct URLs to go to a specific page. Frames are allowable only if they point to a frame set or a CGI or some other means lets folks paste a URL into their browser to get to your flick.


9. Credits must be a single frame at the end of the movie.
See #1. Folks care much more about who contributed what to a movie after they've seen it. Let Hollywood do what it feels it needs to do to satisfy those egos; here it's about the viewer, and the viewer's time is the most precious commodity. Don't waste it. A single frame at the movie will last exactly as long as the viewer wants.


10. Provide an email address in the credits.
An interesting movie will warrant inquiry. It's only natural that someone viewing a movie on a computer will want to contact the author via email. Leaving out your email address only makes the earnest fan jump through hoops with WHOIS to find you. Extra bonus points if you make the email address clickable (e.g., <mailto:info@neocinema.com>).

"Hollwood doesn't like digital because no longer are they the king and queen"

Hollywood ( the business) doesn't care FILM/DIGITAL - hollywood bottm line is $$$$ .. they prefer the less expense of digital, they prefer digital effects -they'll gladly pay for 100,000 digital extra's vs real extra's ... as soon as digital projection is cost effective you'll see them in theaters ( doesn't matter if film projection is better) ... IMO hollywood ( business exec's ) would be shooting ALL digital ( based on cost ) but it is the filmmakers that are not choosing digital.

actually Hollywood loves all the little mini dv filmmakers. they have a option to look at many story's /idea's and if they think they can make $$ off your project they can buy it for CHEAP from you or just take your idea and come up with their own MOVIE. hollywood controls DISTRIBUTION and if YOU want to make $$ then you have to go to hollywood. TRUE you can put your project on the web, make DVD copies but are you making $$$ ..hollywood doesn't care if you make a movie and sell copies yourself because they know you can only make small change. the BIG $$ is thru their distribution.

. also looking at all these DV projects they can see TALENT -future filmmakers they want to work with ...

just because dv allows anybody to make a movie doesn't make anybody a filmmaker ... the BOTTOM line to any movie/project is STORY !!! now the CHEAPEST of all dv/film/tv material is pen and paper but that doesn't make us all writers/scriptwriters !!

Here is a link to a musician/actor's website.

http://www.tranceblackman.com

If you check out the movie link you can see some of my DP and camera work. All shot with my XL1.

Chow fur Now- Nori

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I am a total newbie to video production. I'm using a Sony Digital 8 camera - but here's my thing.
The church I attend does a weekly 1/2 hour broadcast. Currently an outside company does the broadcast, but what would I need to get to do it? I've searched all over the internet for super-newbie tutorials but everything starts a little over my head. I know we need to get a good camera. I have the computer & software needed. I need to know what do I need to do to get it ready to send to the station. What format do I put it in (beta tape, etc.). How do I do it off my computer - firewire??

Any help or links to good tutorials would be GREAT!

Thanks

Hi Nori. Nice footage. Just to clarify, did you shoot all that with the old XL1 or the new XL1s?

You should call up the station first and find out what they will accept.

Also, talk to the company that's currently doing the broadcast and find out how they do it.

Hi Doug,

Super Newbie questions welcome. Don't worry about the questions, the knowldge is here, in this community. The people here will help as often and as much as required. So, first step call the station and find out their requirements for broadcast. Then talk to some people in your church. someone must know a little of whats going on. Then talk to the production company. Ask if you can observe if you stay out of the way. Then, when you have questions, search the archives here and if you can't find the answer post your questions. The answers will come.

Jeff

These "rules" are actually very good, especially for internet
only productions. Whether or not you follow the original Dogma
ideas or not, these are very good guidelines.

QuickTime 6 will be able to stream full lenght features in full screen on ADSL connections.

Rules don't apply well to digital technology. I would suggest the eleventh rule "Learn your tools and keep updated - it takes skills to be on the edge".

640x480 does not calculate well from 720x480 NTSC. Respect the codec algorithms. If it's in NTSC origin run it at 15fps or 29,97fps. PAL should run in 12,5fps or 25fps. Otherwise the codec get's confused. All to often I see people running films at 18fps "to save space" resulting in poor image quality.

Progressive DV will put web streaming in a completely new light. In stead calculating 60i we would calculate 30i.

Thanks for your help and advice.

<<<-- Originally posted by Martin_M : QuickTime 6 will be able to stream full lenght features in full screen on ADSL connections.

"Learn your tools and keep updated - it takes skills to be on the edge".

Perhaps more than anything, "to be on the edge" takes money!

The good old Xl1 is what I use, but I use the 14X manual lens, which in my opinion is a thousand times better than the Xl1s basic package. I've looked at upgrading to the XL1s, but I'm still not convinced it would be worth my while. All the footage I've seen from the XL1s looks no better than my Xl1.

Thanks for that. Do you think the lens is better image quality , or just useability? (zoom, focus etc)

saw one on the news filming folks in NY during the WTC attacks,
and saw another filming in some night club on E!.

I was in Mexico not too long ago and noticed a man filming people with
an XL1S. I asked what the footage was for, and he said it was for "girls gone wild" ....Hmmm, you would think any camera would be suitable for that quality
of video.

Canons have been no stranger to the Howard Stern show... back when the show was aired on CBS, you could easily spot multi-camera scenes where they'd be running around the halls with Canon L2/L1 Hi8s.. then subsequently XL1 cameras.

I believe their radio-room shots were with larger broadcast cameras though.

The lens is way better image quality, the only thing I don't like about the 14X is the zoom control, which I believe the 16x manual lens has added. Other than that, I would like to have a follow focus system to pull focus from the side. It's hard to compare all the different lenses living in a small town that doesn't even sell XL1's.
-Nori

<<<-- Originally posted by Good Dog : Perhaps more than anything, "to be on the edge" takes money! -->>>

I don't think so. To be on the edge demands disrespect of rules. In later years digital video evolution has been pushed forward by people using unexpected combinations of off-the-shelf software and hardware to reduce costs traditionally connected to high end video on computers. Take a look at companys like The Orphanage. Or people like Scott Billups. It's a hacker type of mentality. Without them we'd still be on super expensive Avids and SGI's. Whitout the disrespectful hippie attitude like Apple's (Jobs) we'd have no FireWire.

QuickTime 6 Pro is not very expensive. What? $25? Mpeg4 is THE codec of the future for video content on the web (MicroSoft have still to realize that). Heck, people have been downloadfing DivX (sort of Mpeg4 beta) films like crazy. Why not make that technology easily available for everyone. I'm sure Apple will make it user friendly.

Any place I can download that instead of stream? That doesn't
work here at my company and I don't have a broadband connection
at home. Thank you.

Dunno what platform you're on, but if I use Download Accelerator it seems to grab streaming files fine.

Cheers
Aaron

What is follow focus? Can somebody expalin me? Thanks,
- Srini

Srini, use the search feature on top of this forum to search for
"follow focus". It has been explained many times. Basically it is
the process that someone else is maintaining focus during a
shot (other than the camera operator), called a focus puller, and
usually do that through a cable of some sort or remote control.

Subject: TWIST screens "cicadas"

For Immediate Release: September 12, 2002

Monthly Film Series with TWIST begins October 6th in Austin, TX.

Tomorrow's Women In Science and Technology brings cicadas to the big screen for a showing on October 6, 2002 at 2 p.m. in Austin as part of a film series fundraiser. For $10 adult and $8 student, attendees can enjoy the first full-length feature of TWIST presenter, Kat Candler at the Alamo Drafthouse—Downtown.

Cicadas, was shot over the summer of 1999, and premiered at the 2000 Austin Heart of Film Festival. The story revolves around four teenagers trying to find strength and understanding at an age where no one could possibly understand. Cicadas received the 2000 Austin Heart of Film Festival Audience Award, Film Fest New Haven Audience Award and Digital Vision Award from the Festival of Festivals.

"TWIST teaches young girls to trust their instincts, to know that they can do anything they set their minds to. It teaches them to use their voices,” said Candler.

The first film fundraiser, which illustrated the lives of Mileva Marich and Marie Curie, was such a success that Drafthouse private party coordinator, Terrell Braly, wanted to create a permanent film series to help TWIST raise funds and highlight the work of women in science or women film producers/directors. The Alamo Drafthouse—Downtown at 409 Colorado St. will host the once a month series.

The proceeds from the screenings will be used to fund the Expanding Your Horizons conferences hosted by TWIST. The middle school girls from the Austin-area learn how much fun science, math and technology can be by participating in hands on sessions. In Candler's session the girls directed and shot their own short films using digital video cameras.

If you can’t make it to the film series, please check out the TWIST website on ways you can help. Visit www.twistinc.org for a list of volunteer and support opportunities. cicadas has not been rated yet. Candler believes the adult language in the film may give it a PG-13 rating.

Contact:
Barbara Kelly
380-9922
barbfkelly@sbcglobal.net
www.twistinc.org
www.absenceofwings.com

Heya, i come from a pal country and basicly every tv, every vcr, every dvd player, pretty much the entire range of products for audio/visuals will play any standard from any part of the world.

I find it so strange that the biggest market over there in most likely the world, is limited to one system and how your tv's won't play it all.

Pal is quite superior, forgetting the rez, it is how pal does it's colours, the rez is also important, but the way the colour palatte is deduced and displayed is so superior it makes ntsc look positively horrible when compared.

kermie

This is a series that was produced for cable. It was shot with a Sony 327a head and I believe an EVO series professional Hi8 rear end. It was shot on Hi8 ME stock and dumped to 3/4" Umatic SP for broadcast and cut with linear A/B Roll editing on Sony 3/4" VO series decks. This was my first broadcast project out of school. It aired for two seasons, I didn't make a dime and loved every minute of producing it AND it was the NUMBER 1 rated show at the Floyd County Jail by staff and residents! Talk about a captive audience! Ha!

Link:

http://community.webtv.net/JEFCom/TASKFORCE

Nori, heres a stupid question. You said you used the 14x lens, is that a wider lens than the 16x?

if not, can you explain the difference in the 2 lenses?

dvmonkey2,

First of all, is there a dvmonkey1? Or are you the only true dvmonkey? I don't believe it is a wider lens, it does however offer power zoom capability, two differnt types of ND filtration and an extra 2X zoom. Plus it's more expensive!

Woo hoo. Spending money is FUN!

Nope, I am the one and only DV monkey! hehe

But seriously, Do you or anyone else know of a web site that shows the differences in the xl1 lenses?

A new 3D animated short is coming, Heterogenic. Trailer downloadable here
www.art5.it
By Art5


Ray

www.art5.it
ray@art5.it

What does this have anything to do with Dogme 95? It's basically a web delivery guideline vs. a shift to story and character/actor(s) vs. all the plagues of major motion picture production. I miss where these tenets, if they even come close to that definition, focus on content, which I thought Dogme 95 was a push towards.

I agree with most things said on the consumer term 'the digital revolution' but in large ways it simply been a way to sell more cameras to a larger market, because content and storytelling is still the problem, whether it's film or video. I make a very sharp destinction about not going down the digital vs. film road because it's simply an economics talk in the end between the mediums. You can make as many films or shorts as you want, but when it does come down to a discussion about delivery to an actual viewing market, film gets distribution, period. It's cruel and unfair, but theatrical distribution here in the states is so expensive (including marketing/advertising). The web as a delivery method is only really alive at the two major portals, in my opinion, ifilm.com and atomfilms.com, which ask for exclusive distribution rights often. So story is still the strongest card I can play.

I do like the idea that this guy has a set of rules for himself that he measures himself by. That's pretty ballsy. I think it would be great to start a website that criticizes the Dogme 95 office for charging their $3000 to qualify your film, not to mention it's implication of final academy film standard/delivery, which added to the three grand will guarantee the film will never wear the Dogme 95 brand. A friend of mine reflects on the Dogme 95 idea as a very European 'alergy' because filmmakers/videomakers here in the US have bigger troubles. But a move towards story and characters, when explosions and cgi is the major fad is great. It will great if the swing is completely the other way, and a new Dogme will be seeking visual drunkery 20 years down the road, but I doubt it. Take care and thanks for giving me some beautiful things to read before bed.

christian
nebunule films
nebunule.com

No one said it has anything to do with Dogme 95. It is "similar" to it in that a set of rules was laid down, in this case for web cinema. I think it was done tongue-in-cheek.

I agree with you when you say more emphasis should be placed on story/character, rather than the gadgets used to tell the story. However, this debate (complaint?) has been ongoing for nearly 30 years! Alas, we live in a time when gadgets rule.

Yes, story (character) is the strongest card any filmmaker can play. And when it is played, and played well, that film will rise to the top. Having said that, it may not rise to the top immediately. It may take years, or even a generation or two, but it will rise.

Fads come and go. Art endures time.

Im assuming nobody knows what im talking about, eh?

Please make sure you're posting to the proper forum. This question belongs in the XL1 Lens & optics area.

See my "Guide to XL1 Lens Options" at the XL1 Watchdog, www.dvinfo.net/xl1.htm

Here's a good source for information for those of you who are interested in documentaries. They refer to it as a "cookbook," we're using it as our "bible."

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/program/courses/dv/cookbook.html

Jay,

Great find! It is rather timely as we are working on the development of our next project/documentary.

Thanks!

Paul,

Glad to hear it was of some value to you. We too are gearing up for a new project. It's proven to be a valuable tool. As they discuss in the body of the material, story is everything, and ours seems to be a perfect fit.

Best of luck to you on your upcoming documentary, too!

My film, RuN, was selected as a "Ifilm Pick" by www.Ifilm.com so Support a Fellow Xl1s owner and go see it and give it an awesome rating! Thanks!
here's the URL:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_info/0,3699,2439660,00.html

P.S. It wasn't shot on a xl1s but go see it anyway:)

<<<-- Originally posted by Adam Craig : My film, RuN, was selected as a "Ifilm Pick" by www.Ifilm.com so Support a Fellow Xl1s owner and go see it and give it an awesome rating! Thanks!
here's the URL:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_info/0,3699,2439660,00.html

P.S. It wasn't shot on a xl1s but go see it anyway:) -->>>

Adam,

Congrats! So what camera did you shoot with?

This film was done with a Panasonic PVDV 910 (Just a basic 1-chip consumer camera). This was done before I bought the XL1s, but it would have been sweet to use this though. The only concern would be running full speed... it could turn out like that trailer from that Eddie Murphy movie, Showtime. Crash!

Adam

Looks very nice Adam! Good work. Anymore you can tell us about
how you made it? Looks liked you used a steadicam or something
at least? Nice editting job too!

That was pretty f'n good. II liked nearly everything about it. You know how to put your shots together and it had plenty of style. Loved that stunt when the guy ran over the car. Impressed by your steadi-work (however you did it).

The only things that were detractors was the voice of the heavy, the daytime fight in the parking lot that just seemed to end abruptly for no reason, and the 'ending'. I think you could even have gotten away with leaving it open ended.

Very nice, good sir. I think I got confused, but it was probably my fault. I had the extreme pleasure of watching it over a 56k modem. I feel sorry for that poor bastard at the end.

<<<-- Originally posted by Adam Craig : This film was done with a Panasonic PVDV 910 (Just a basic 1-chip consumer camera). This was done before I bought the XL1s, but it would have been sweet to use this though. The only concern would be running full speed... it could turn out like that trailer from that Eddie Murphy movie, Showtime. Crash!

Adam -->>>

As both Rob and Keith mentioned, I would like to hear more about the making of your short movie.

Also, what software did you use to edit the movie in?

OK, This was originally a group project for a Webster Universuty Video I class. The class only gave up access to Old SVHS cameras but we wanted more possibilities. So we decided on Who was acting, directing, etc... and decided to use my Panasonic MiniDV camera.

After storyboarding A basic skeleton of the Film (in an hour) we decided to meet one saterday and shoot the whole thing. Most of the shots just started as an idea like "wouldn't it be cool if..."

The Camera stabelizer i used was similar to one shown in these photos: http://www.steadytracker.com/steady5.html. I had a knock off that I paid far too much for.

After having about 45 min of footage, and pretty good coverage, I decided to edit the film in Adobe Premiere 6.0 and do the sound editing in Sound Forge 4. The visual effects were done in AfterEffects 5.0

Those Freeze frames in the beginning (influenced by Guy Richie's Snatch) were done in photoshop 6. I first thought i should just freeze frame in premeire and just add titles but the interlacing of the video created this weird strobing effect. So I exported the frame I wanted frozen into a Targa frame and simply took that one frame and filled in the background with what ever color i thought looked the best and simply repeated that frame for as long as was confortable.

The Gunshot was done in the same manner, only i took the frame before he jerks his hand back and airbrushed a white and yellow triangle (looks like actual gunshot).

The introduction was done using basic keyframes and a large digital image to pan across.

The black and white portion was shot with a SVHS camera mounted on a tripod resting on the upper level of the garadge. I (the black guy) just threw my head back as though i got shot and added the flame from the gun the same was as memtioned above. The blood crawling down the sidewalk is rootbeer somone happen to have on the set. We poured next to my head just after i acted shot. To do this, we had everyone in frame hold still will the rootbeer got poured and then contunied the scene from there, editing around the grip that ran in frame.

All the actual running, car chasing etc.. was sped up about 50%
(150% of actual speed) to give it more energy while being safe on location.

And everything else was just carful, time consuming editing.

We didn't use any external mics other than a lav for the voice overs. And one section of dialog was re recorded in post due to not having any audio equipment.

Well, that's all i can think of. Just basic equipment and some creative kids...

Did that answer your questions?

Oh, The NLE I had was a Dual P3 866 mhz with a Pyro firewire card, 256 o'ram, Gainward Geforce 3 Card. And that's about it, i think.

Please Don't forget to Go to the Ifilm site and Give it a rating so, i can get more of an audience, and tell friends... Hopefully, this will open some doors.

The sped up bits were nice.

In my opinion digital has a long way to go before it will be as good or even better then film, and remember new film with higher speeds and finer grain are being developed as we speak.

I just finished a 30 sec. commercial for a Toyota dealer in Los Angeles. It will air starting 10-28-02 on TNN. I used my Cannon Xl-1 and did the editing on a 1 gig pentium 111, 20 gig hard drive using Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.0. I really love the Xl-1 and the dealer thought I used film. The camera really has great picture quality and I'm also shooting a movie for DVD realease. The ulead software is really easy to use and I've never had a crash durring captue. They could do a better job with the instuctional manual as it's sometimes confusing. Iv'e read reviews knocking Ulead however this is a very powerfull editing App.

Cool! Did you shoot in Frame Movie Mode?

Well, my scene didn't make it to the Top 250. But I did want to share it with this community, since I've learned so much here.

http://www.singlereel.com/directory/clip-20863.html

It's 3 minutes, Quicktime, but not streaming. It's 10mb, so you have to wait until it downloads before you can play it. Be patient, it takes a while.

Shot it on a PD150, cut it on Premiere. Had to compress it down to 10mb as per the PGL guidelines. That's why it looks kinda crappy.

I'd be happy to answer questions, and I'd love to hear comments. Thanks,

Kris Carrillo
WCTV 56

Hix,

For those of us that don't live in LA, can you post it somewhere we could see it?